WWUTT 1871 Be Imitators of God (Part 1)

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We are called to be imitators of God. How difficult is that?

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It's impossible. But the very thing God requires, He also gives, His righteousness through Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. Folks, I'm a little congested, and it's difficult for me to hold on to my voice for longer than a couple of minutes.

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So I think I'm going to give my voice a rest this week. I've got some other teaching things that I have to do, and I'll reserve my voice for those responsibilities.

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As for the podcast, I'm going to play a couple of sermons that I preached recently out of the book of Ephesians. This first sermon is going to be from Ephesians 5, 1 through 6, and I'll play that sermon between today and tomorrow.

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And then the next sermon is in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, and that'll be the sermon that you hear

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Wednesday and Thursday. And then maybe Becky and I will be on together for the Q &A on Friday.

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We'll see how things go. In the meantime, here is a sermon that I preached this past, I think it was October, out of Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 through 6.

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As we continue our series, reflecting upon what it means to be of the household of God, having just heard that we are to give grace to those who hear, speaking with our words, the language of our

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Savior. So we continue in this instruction to be imitators of God. My text today is

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Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. Would you please stand in honor of the word of the

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King? The Apostle Paul says here, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ also loved us and gave

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Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

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But sexual immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints, nor filthiness and foolish talk, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

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For this you know with certainty, that no one sexually immoral or impure or greedy, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

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Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

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Therefore, do not be partakers with them. You may be seated as we pray.

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Heavenly Father, teach us today what it means to be imitators of God. Imitators of you as your dearly beloved children.

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We have read in Ephesians thus far, that through Jesus Christ our Savior, we have been adopted into the family of God.

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We are now called your sons and your daughters, no longer of the sons of disobedience, but now children of light, inheritors of the kingdom of God and of Christ.

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So may we understand by what we will read today and consider from your word what it means to walk as children of light, to be imitators of our

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Father who is in heaven, and of Christ who is our Savior. It is in His name that we pray, and all

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God's people said, Amen. So we come to a section of Ephesians here where we're contrasting darkness and light.

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If you continue on to verse 8, you read this, For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the

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Lord. So walk as children of light. So keep that contrast in mind as we consider our text today.

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We're looking at a section that is descriptive of darkness. We read here about the sons of disobedience who walk in darkness, and then next week we read about being children of light.

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All throughout the Bible we see constant themes of darkness and light, right from the very beginning,

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Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Darkness was over the face of the deep, and then what did

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God say? Let there be light. Psalm 18, 28,

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For you are my lamp. Yahweh, my God, illumines my darkness.

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In John 1, 5, The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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In fact, John uses this motif of light and darkness all throughout his gospel. John 3, 19,

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And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

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In John 8, 12, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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This idea of darkness representing something bad, and light representing something good, this isn't just found in the

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Bible. It's understood by pagans as well. Surely you're familiar with the Chinese philosophical symbol of the yin -yang.

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The yin represents darkness or the negative principle, while the yang represents light or the positive principle.

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We see the battle between darkness and light in our storytelling. In Star Wars, there's the battle between the light and the dark sides of the force.

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In Charles Dickens' classic, A Tale of Two Cities, darkness and light were used to contrast

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Dickens' two societies. In the video game series, The Legend of Zelda, there are constant battles between darkness and light.

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One textbook that I read examined the uses of darkness and light across cultures throughout history.

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And the book said the following, light and darkness are basic natural phenomena as well as symbolic or metaphorical meanings that are often equated with pairs of being and non -being, primordial chaos and world order.

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Darkness is the mysterious impenetrable ground, often associated with death or the occult, whereas light becomes associated with creation of purity and new birth.

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It grants and is therefore a symbol for the primal conditions of life, warmth, intelligence, and spiritual enlightenment.

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Isn't it fascinating how instinctively we associate light with something good and darkness with something bad?

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If the lights were to go out here today, all of a sudden, power outage. Lights go off. What would we assume?

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Something bad's happening. However, because man's eyes have been darkened, even blinded because of our sinful nature, he, in his natural state, is unable to distinguish between what is truly light and what is truly darkness.

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We stumble around in the dark until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and suddenly we are awakened to the reality of our sin and our need for a

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Savior. And God has made you able to see that Jesus Christ is that Savior.

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With our eyes open to the truth, we see the path that is in front of us, and we're able to recognize which road leads back into darkness and which is the path of righteousness that we may walk in the light.

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1 John 1, 6 -7 says, If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie, and we do not practice the truth.

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But if we walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

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As we look at our text this morning, if you'll just set your eyes on these seven verses, you'll probably notice that we start off with something light and positive.

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Be imitators of God. Walk in love. But then we shift gears, and in verse 3, we have warnings against sin and the judgment of God that comes against those who walk in darkness.

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Verse 7 concludes, Therefore, do not be partakers with them. That's going to be the verse that I end with today, and it's going to be the verse that Pastor Tom begins with next week.

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We will see this week the path that we should not be on, the way of darkness that leads to death, and then next week we have described for us the path that we should be on, the way of light that leads to life.

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First, let's look at verses 1 and 2. So look down at verses 1 and 2. You'll notice here we have two commands and two reasons.

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It goes command, reason, command, reason. What is the first command?

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It's an open book test. You can answer. What's the first command? Be imitators of God. What is the reason?

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As dearly beloved children, we are to be imitators of God because He loves us and because we are

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His children. Now notice that verse 1 begins with, Therefore. So this is in light of the fact that we've just been told, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, graciously forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also graciously forgiven you.

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Therefore, be imitators of God, as He has graciously forgiven you, so you must be gracious and forgive one another, even if you think they don't deserve it.

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We did not deserve the forgiveness that God has shown us, and so we must extend the same grace of God to one another.

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Be imitators of God. Now, what does it mean to imitate

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God? Very simply means, be like God, who said,

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You shall be holy, for I am holy. 1 Peter 1 .16. That's another way of saying, be imitators of God.

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My friends, what we see our heavenly Father doing, we must, as His children, also do the same.

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And we understand this concept of children behaving like their parents. Children not only share the physical characteristics of their parents, but they also share the behavioral characteristics of their parents.

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How many of you have said to someone else's daughter, you are just like your mom? Or you've said to someone else's son, you're just like your dad.

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You've probably said that positively or negatively. And you don't necessarily mean that they just look like their parents, but they also act like mom or dad.

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And when it comes to teaching our children, when Becky and I teach our children what words are okay for them to use and language that's not okay for them to use, instead of just going down a whole list of words that they should not say, we tell our kids, if you have never heard mom or dad say that, then you can't say it either.

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If one of your friends uses a word and you don't know what it means, you can come ask us what it means.

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But until you do, don't imitate your friends. Imitate mom and dad.

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And so likewise, what we have seen God do, what we have seen about the character of God in His word, the

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Bible, so we must do, and we must do for one another. As we have witnessed

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Jesus Christ honor and glorify the Father, so we must be imitators in doing the same.

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And as we have seen Jesus walk, so we must also walk.

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That's exactly 1 John 2 .6. The one who say he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as Jesus walked.

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It wasn't that long ago that we were reading in Ephesians 4. In verse 1, Paul said, Therefore I, the prisoner of the

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Lord, exhort you to walk, worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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When we imitate God, we do as we were made to do.

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We were created to image God, to glorify

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Him in all that we say and do. Now, we must understand our place.

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We are not God. We can never be God. But we are

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His children. And as we understand the concept of children imaging their parents, so we must image

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God as His dearly beloved children. So we have here in Ephesians 4 .1

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the first command and the first reason. Look at verse 2. What is the second command?

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Walk in love. What is the reason? Because Christ also loved us and gave

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Himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

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We understand exactly what it means to love one another because we've seen

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Jesus give us an example of exactly what love looks like. Not by the world's definition.

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The world's going to tell you their definition of what they think love should be. They'll give you a definition of what they think

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Christ is. But how do we know who Jesus is and what

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He has done? We look in the pages of Scripture. There are all kinds of stuff the world calls love that's really not love.

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It might be lust or greed or self -centered fulfillment, but it isn't love. And if you tell a worldly person that they're being selfish, they're going to respond to you by saying, well, you're just not very what?

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Loving. Right. But we don't need to be in the dark as to what love truly is.

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Jesus has shown us true love. In John 15, 13,

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Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

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The Apostle Paul said to the Philippians in Philippians 2, Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves.

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Not merely looking out for your own personal interests. There's nothing wrong with looking out for your personal interests.

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But not only that, you look also for the interests of others. And then Paul gives us the reason for acting like this.

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Because it's the way Christ acted. Philippians 2, 5.

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Have this way of thinking among yourselves, which was also in Christ.

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Why should we consider the needs of others ahead of our own? Because Christ considered our need.

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We just heard it this morning. As Brother Mark was quoting from the hymn of Christ, there in Philippians 2, 5 through 11, ahead of the prayer that he prayed.

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Let me remind you once again, that Christ, who was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself and made himself nothing.

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Taking on the form of a servant and being found in human form, he became obedient unto

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God even to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

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And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the

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Father. Walk in love, Paul says.

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As Christ has done this, so we must also do. And it is to be the very attitude of our lives.

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Jesus didn't just obey the Father on the Sabbath or on Sunday. He obeyed and submitted himself to the will of the

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Father in everything. In his whole mind and body and spirit, submissive to the will of the

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Father. And so we've seen Christ do this, so we must do. Our demeanor should be to consider one another's needs ahead of our own.

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If you have a family, you have a home base right there where you can put this into practice.

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Husband, consider your wife's needs ahead of your own. Wife, consider your husband's needs ahead of your own.

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Mom and Dad, consider your children's needs ahead of your own.

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Hey, kids, consider your brother or your sister's needs ahead of your own.

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Oh, hey, guess what else, kids? Consider Mom and Dad's needs ahead of your own.

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And beyond the home, we have a body of believers right here. Brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, where we consider one another's needs ahead of our own.

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Because we've seen Christ do this with his whole life, walking in love.

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So we must also walk in love. This is the sacrificial love our

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Savior modeled for us. He who gave himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

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Remember that we are the household of God. That's been our theme as we've been going through Ephesians.

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And in the household of God, sacrifices were offered up to God, and they were said to be a pleasing aroma to the

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Lord. That's right at the beginning of Leviticus. Leviticus 1, 9, 13, and 17, offering sacrifices that are a pleasing aroma to God.

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Consider these words from John Gill. He was the predecessor of Charles Spurgeon, a pastor in London.

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Gill said the following, Christ was both priest and sacrifice. He offered up himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of his people.

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This he offered up to God against whom they had sinned and whose justice must be satisfied, who called him to do this work and engaged him in it and which was well -pleasing to him.

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God smelled a sweet savor of rest in it. Being an unblemished sacrifice, complete, full, and adequate to the demands of his justice, by it sin was put away, finished, and made an end of.

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And so it is to God an offering and a sacrifice for a sweet -smelling savor.

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Paul told the Corinthians that we are to therefore live our lives in the same way, as a sacrifice that is a pleasing aroma unto

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God. He wrote in Romans 12, 1, that in view of God's mercies, we are to be as living sacrifices unto the

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Lord, holy and acceptable to God. This is our spiritual act of worship.

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And so, my friends, since we are to be imitators of God as his dearly beloved children, and since we are to walk in love as imitators of Christ, what are we not to do?

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Well, we're not to do anything that would be contrary to that, right? We're not to do anything that would be contrary to the holiness of God or the love that Christ demonstrated for us.

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We should not have anything to do with those sins for which

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Christ gave his life. Amen? Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .tt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our